1) Field of the Invention
The field of invention relates generally to poultry processing and more particularly to the removal of the skin or cuticle and ammonia burns present on the poultry paw or foot.
2) Description of Prior Art
Poultry is suspended by its legs in a head lowermost position from shackles and moved sequentially through the poultry plant on the overhead conveyer for killing, scalding, and picking. The present invention is designed to clean the skin or cuticle and ammonia burns from the paws or feet of the poultry after the feathers have been removed from the carcass. The invention, unlike the prior art, does this prior to cutting off the paws. The present invention does this by use of high speed brushes and an adjustable guide bar that forces the paws between the brushes. The present invention will be further described herein.
The prior inventions do the cleaning of the paws of the poultry either after the paws are cut off from the body of the poultry or during the cut off process. Most of these inventions use a heating method and liquids to clean the poultry. The drawback to these methods is that the cleaning solutions leave ammonia burns and are not as successful in removing the skin or cuticle from the paw as the present invention. Based on the inventors' studies, it has been determined that with the present invention, ammonia burns are removed at an 80% success rate, and with the present invention, the studies show, the skin removal, in comparison to the prior art, results in significant savings to the poultry plant owner.